71: Best Concert Ever

Podcast 71 features restless_nomad sitting in for cortex who is away this week. We cover our favorites from around the sites and it was recorded on Monday June 11th.

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Russian Soda reviews

End Piece, last artworks before famous artists died (Keith Haring's last)

Ranking of all Stephen King's books from worst to best (On Writing was #2)

Random P G Wodenhouse generator

Curt Schilling's video game company 38 Studios implodes

The art and activism of Jimmy Sommerville

The Grateful Dead's best concert ever

jscalzi's post about white privilege

The Origin of the Melungeon

A Nerd Rant

Finding the right bra that fits

Man boobs story

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What is like a Brooks Brothers shirt, only cheaper?

Dealing with ovarian cyst surgery

Is there a comprehensive local author/comedy/musician dates tour app? (sadly, no)

Tips for giving an Ignite talk (on the future of books)

Are there any fantasy novels set in places besides fake Europe?

Are there dramatic, non-campy scifi musicals?

What should I experience before I die?

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Deck ads remove American Apparel from MeFi

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posted by mathowie to MeFi Podcast at 3:53 PM (43 comments total)

I think before the hour is over, someone will make the Fuck Yeah MeFi Tumblr, knowing you freaks.
posted by wheelieman at 4:29 PM on June 12, 2012

Yay!
posted by The Whelk at 4:30 PM on June 12, 2012

Matt you seemed uncomfortable during the lady undergarments discussion.
posted by wheelieman at 5:20 PM on June 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

He's a modern man and knows he can't be too enthusiastic during the lady undergarments section. Was very happy to have restless_nomad on board for this podcast.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:40 PM on June 12, 2012

Someone link to the transcript edit page so I can get started working on it please! Or explain to me how to not be stupid, and start one on my own.
posted by Night_owl at 5:43 PM on June 12, 2012

Psssht. A really modern man would have worn enough ladies undergarments to have something to contribute.

No? Just me?
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 5:54 PM on June 12, 2012 [3 favorites]

The Fanscribed transcription was strictly unofficial. TangerineGurl arranged for the the fanscribed folks to set up a demo, but I think it's probably on one of us to host the service in the future.

Previous transcription efforts are up on the wiki, but they're pretty sparse. There were only a few people doing them, and it sort of petered out after a while. Fanscribed helps lower the barrier for people to do little snippets, which helps, but to be viable, it needs to be ready to go as soon as the new podcasts appear, while people are still enthusiastic about them.
posted by zamboni at 5:58 PM on June 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yay! Covered for the walk to work for the next couple of days.
posted by arcticseal at 6:02 PM on June 12, 2012

That was nice.....don't take the time to listen in that often, so it is a nice treat when I can just run the whole thing end to end.

Thanks folks!
posted by lampshade at 6:23 PM on June 12, 2012

Sorry, haven't listened to the whole thing, but did you omit mefi.music completely?

(I didn't post anything this month but there was some good shit, my friends)
posted by unSane at 6:52 PM on June 12, 2012

this is for all the Donna lovers that missed the Penultimate post of the Best Grateful Dead Concert ever posted in which the thread is closed for the archives.


.
micro-dot link
posted by vozworth at 6:55 PM on June 12, 2012

cortex is usually "the music guy" and I figured mathowie would pick a few songs that he'd like and add them in later. We mentioned the music album challenge and the mix cd but it looks like we didn't pull in anything from music. Sorry about that.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:57 PM on June 12, 2012

Ooookay. I've set up a wiki page for the transcription, and I'll look into hosting Fanscribed myself later.
posted by Pronoiac at 7:00 PM on June 12, 2012 [2 favorites]

Yay! Thanks for mentioning that the infodump was updated. I'll add "datawank" to my free time to-do list.
posted by frimble at 7:17 PM on June 12, 2012

This is how I find out about the Stephen King post? And it's closed?

I know which version of "The Stand" coldchef read.
posted by cjorgensen at 7:19 PM on June 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

I think before the hour is over, someone will make the Fuck Yeah MeFi Tumblr, knowing you freaks.

I just looked at that post, and the first comment was from likes-pussy or something like that, so I clicked in, and it was like 90% of the other tumblrs I've looked at. 99% of them are porn.
posted by cjorgensen at 7:24 PM on June 12, 2012

Why do you look at so much porn?
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 8:19 PM on June 12, 2012

fuckyeahmetafilter.tumblr.com exists, but is empty. *shrug*
posted by maryr at 8:49 PM on June 12, 2012

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh! I just read the ovarian cyst question, and thought the bit about dermoid cysts having hair and teeth was hyperbole.

And then I googled it.

?!
posted by ocherdraco at 9:01 PM on June 12, 2012

cjorgensen: "This is how I find out about the Stephen King post? And it's closed?"

Me too! I also missed the chance to post this in a relevant thread!
posted by dg at 9:50 PM on June 12, 2012

There was a Stephen King post made earlier today - does that help?
posted by flex at 10:24 PM on June 12, 2012

Oh, yes, and I too was worried the bra post would attract some "heh, boobies" static to it. I was relieved it did not, and very happy so many people found it useful.
posted by flex at 10:27 PM on June 12, 2012

Jessamyn. Oh, dear.

Wodehouse. Pronounced "Woodhouse." Jeeves and Wooster, pronounced "Worcester."

There was a TV adaptation, starring Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. It was on PBS for years. Here you go. (Warning: It didn't really work. The charm of Wodehouse is in his descriptive language, which is so absent from the TV series as to render the whole exercise essentially worthless. The preceding link is provided for "oh hey I know who those people are" purposes only.)
posted by Sys Rq at 11:52 PM on June 12, 2012

Thanks. Any suggestions for a first book to pick up? I've seen the Fry and Laurie stuff a little bit but didn't connect it to Wodehouse because I am slow.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:47 AM on June 13, 2012

Any suggestions for a first book to pick up?

Start with Tales from the Drones Club. This is likely to be a controversial recommendation because it's not Jeeves & Wooster, but it's a collection of shorts, which contain most if not all of the classic Wodehouse elements. A few of those will give you a taste for what you're in for if you pick up one of the bigger books.

Or you could go straight into the meat of it with, say, Life with Jeeves which holds a passel of good Jeeves & Wooster stories as well as the full-length novel Right Ho, Jeeves.
posted by gauche at 7:19 AM on June 13, 2012

The charm of Wodehouse is in his descriptive language, which is so absent from the TV series as to render the whole exercise essentially worthless.

Yes. Thank you. Nobody seems to get this. Hugh Laurie grimacing his way through a life of aristocratic uselessness while Stephen Fry stiff-upper-lips it in the background is really quite charming, but the language and the descriptions are precisely what is missing. The very stuff, as it were.
posted by gauche at 7:25 AM on June 13, 2012

It is comforting to know that Wodehouse still gets mispronounced on the podcast even when I am not around to do the mispronouncing.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:18 AM on June 13, 2012

I would definitely recommend the J&W shorts. First, because you can quickly gauge whether to love them or throw them at the wall. Second, because Wodehouse is, in my opinion, much more enjoyable in small, manageable doses; with the full-length novels, if I mark my page and step away, I invariably lose track of who's who and what the heck is going on. Third, because some of them are very old and, in the US at least, out of copyright.

It's easy to see why someone would make the shorts into a TV show; reading them does feel an awful lot like watching a full season of a classic sitcom. It seems like it should be easy. But it just doesn't translate.
posted by Sys Rq at 8:22 AM on June 13, 2012

but did you omit mefi.music completely?

Yeah, sorry. It was up to me to pick some songs but I was really busy and barely had time to edit the podcast together, write up the links and notes, and get it all online. unSane, if you have any favorites from the past month or so, feel free to post links here, I'd love to check them out.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:06 AM on June 13, 2012

I learned how to pronounce Wodehouse from that thread! So I guess I win.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 9:20 AM on June 13, 2012

Yay! Jessamyn thought my project was funny!

Also I love that this has the 'bras' tag.
posted by Mchelly at 9:37 AM on June 13, 2012

That bra post is awesome -- it totally made me go back on my (previously negative) stance on huge multi-link posts.
posted by bluefly at 11:03 AM on June 13, 2012

Yay I've been waiting for this! Matt please don't let the Best Of blog kill podcasting, there's enough great content for both.
posted by ellieBOA at 1:18 PM on June 13, 2012

Powell's Books has an iCal export and a mailing list for store events.
posted by zengargoyle at 12:07 AM on June 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

I have the same desire for a tool to help me make it to cool shit when it's local, and I think the problem you run into is that it's too easy to jump straight into the noise side of the signal to noise ratio. I have my local venues email me their weekly schedules, but I get so many at this point I don't end up even opening the emails. I have much better luck following (some) of the people I'm interested in seeing on facebook and twitter to see when they're in town. However, that can be problematic too. Kids These Days (a local band on Conan last night) and Hannible Burris post about all their shows all over the country -- so much that it ends up being noise instead of useful.
posted by garlic at 7:13 AM on June 14, 2012

Here's a status update: Fanscribed feels really rough around the edges, though that might be my inexperience with Python and gunicorn. It's visible on the right network interface now, but the html still refers to resources on localhost.
posted by Pronoiac at 11:55 AM on June 14, 2012

Okay, I got Fanscribed running, with some help from its maker. Let me know if anything breaks.
posted by Pronoiac at 11:06 PM on June 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

Well now. Don't everybody rush the Fanscribed server at once.
posted by Pronoiac at 12:30 PM on June 22, 2012

Haha. Thanks for posting again, I missed that.
posted by Night_owl at 5:59 PM on June 22, 2012

Argh. My server's been inaccessible since last night. I'm getting in touch with support. Sorry about that, everybody.
posted by Pronoiac at 3:56 PM on June 23, 2012

Ah, it's chugging along again. A security precaution just backfired on me.
posted by Pronoiac at 9:01 PM on June 23, 2012

Oh, wow. Thanks for liking my Jimmy Somerville post and giving it a shoutout here, and for mentioning the still-a-bit-surreal thing about me interviewing Jimmy to write liner notes for rereleases of his albums.

I did 3 hours of interviews with him in two stages, and have written about 1500 words about each of his first five albums (Bronski Beat, Communards, and two solo projects). These reissues are double CD sets each containing the full album plus a slew of remixes, b-sides, and other content related to that specific little era of his career.

For those who care, here are Amazon links for those rereleases. They're all imports here in the US, so if you live elsewhere, chances are you'll be paying a bit lower price points because, well, it won't be an import to where you are.

Bronski Beat - The Age Of Consent
The Communards - Communards
The Communards - Red
Jimmy Somerville - Read My Lips
Jimmy Somerville - Dare To Love
posted by hippybear at 11:52 AM on June 24, 2012

Oh this thread closes soon. I'll make one last request for help; the transcript is mostly but not entirely done yet.
posted by Pronoiac at 3:02 PM on July 12, 2012